CHAPTER XIV.

ALL attempts to disparage Campion's religious and moral character, or his talents and learning, having thus failed, only one course was left to disparage his patriotism, and to hold him up as a traitor to the scorn of his countrymen.

338

It was generally supposed that the first man who afforded grounds for the notion that all seminary priests were really traitors was John Nichols, who in his recantation sermon, preached Feb. 5, 1581, before the priests in the Tower, gave information concerning the republication of the bull of Pius V., and concerning the treasonable speeches which were the usual utterances of teachers and scholars in the seminaries.33 "One of your readers in divinity positive, before two hundred scholars at least, said that it was lawful for any man of worship in England to give authority to the vilest wretch to seek the Queen's death." "Father Pais, reader in scholastic theology in the Roman College, said: "The good will of the Pope is manifest, and his purse ready; but King Philip is either turned aside by fear, or prevented by want of means, and dares not lead his army into England."" 339 And the scholars used to miscal their sovereign lady, and say they would burn her bones, and those of her Council that favoured not their attempts, whether alive or dead. And he gave a long list of those against whom the threats were uttered-among them were Lords Burghley, the Earl of Huntingdon, Knowles and Walsingham; and a long litany of bishops, deans, and doctors of divinity. Moreover he said that they wished their country to be destroyed with fire, sword, and famine, so as to bring back the Catholic religion.

It was nearly half a year after this that George Eliot gave his information about a plot of fifty priests to murder the Queen, Leicester, Burghley, and Walsingham. And it was probably on this or some similar information that Walsingham was on the 14th of July340 set to work by the Queen in the examination of certain persons charged to have conspired against her majesty's person, and who turned out to be runagate priests brought up in Rome and Douai. These and

similar informations tended to connect all the seminary priests with the Irish rebellion, which the Pope stirred up not only with men and money, but specially through Dr. Sanders, who did better in the professor's chair than in the charge of an army. The English ministers had obtained a copy of his letter to the Irish, the tone of which much resembles the suppressed placard of Cardinal Allen, which was to have been distributed in England if the Armada had effected a landing in 1588.341 Sanders tells the "Catholic lords and worshipful gentlemen of Ireland" that Elizabeth is a reproach to the crown, and they poltroons for abetting her. Her successor must be a Catholic, for the Pope will take order that the crown shall rest in none but Catholics; and he will punish them for having supported her. "What will ye answer to the Pope's lieutenant, when he, bringing us the Pope's and other Catholic princes' aid, as shortly he will, shall charge you with the crime and pain of heretics for maintaining an heretical pretensed Queen, against the public sentence of Christ's Vicar? Can she, with her feigned supremacy, which the devil instituted in Paradise when he made Eve Adam's mistress in God's matters, absolve and acquit you from the Pope's excommunication and curse?" and so on. There was no doubt of the danger in which England then stood. There was no doubt either that the law recently enacted gave the government full power to treat any Jesuits or seminary priests whom they could catch in England as ipso facto traitors. There was no need of any laborious endeavour to connect this or that individual with the great Hispano-papal scheme. But, on the other hand, public opinion did not altogether run with the statute. It was easier to say than to make men believe that the Catholic religion was not really a religion, but merely a political institution; that the Mass was not a sacrifice to God, but a treasonable practice against the Queen; that confession was not a means of cleansing the conscience from sin, but only of enrolling oneself in a secret association, pledged to support the Pope when his invasion of England came off. It was this scrupulous public opinion that gave the Council pause, and made them argue the case for and against putting their prisoners to death.342 Fuller gives in parallel columns the chief reasons alleged in these debates. One side, that the breath of all such priests was contagious; the other, that some of them might be amended. One, that it was foolish to make severe laws and not execute them; the other, that the law need not be repealed, but only the execution thereof mitigated. One, that such pity would be interpreted to be either fear of vengeance, or an acknow

ledgment that the law was wicked; the other, that no one should be frighted by scarecrows from what is honourable, that it was better to be abused for lenity than for cruelty. One, that Jesuitism could be best extirpated by the gallows; the other, that to make martyrs would be to propagate their opinions. One, that dead men cannot bite, but that men in prison are a standing provocative to a rescue; the other, that the greater penalty will move greater revenge, and sharpen zeal. One asserted that no priest or Jesuit was ever converted by imprisonment; the other, that some had been so, and more had been half converted, and had renounced the treasonable part of their profession. Finally, the one declared that if they were put to death, it would be not for religion but for rebellion; the other, that if their death was the child of their rebellion, it was the grandchild of their religion; for their obedience to their superiors put them on the propagation of their religion, and thus made them offenders to the State.

Elizabeth herself was inclined to the side of mercy; but among her Council were several of that peculiar sour leaven of Puritanism which was always found to be biassed towards cruelty and blood, and to make the sincerest men the severest and bitterest. These men naturally had their senses most sharpened to the dangers that were gathering round Protestantism, and were willing to protect it by the most decisive measures. They were in terror lest the French match should bring about toleration of Popery, and toleration lead to supremacy. And, religiously, they were opposed to all toleration, to any compromise with Belial. Their aim was the extirpation of Popery. A carefully secured toleration of Catholics was to them almost as abominable as a restoration of their supremacy. Yet, on the contrary, they could not afford to renounce the French match, for that would be to throw France into the arms of Spain.343 Indeed Cobham wrote that the Queen-mother was persuading Anjou to give up all idea of Elizabeth, and to marry one of Philip's daughters. In this dilemma the priests in prison were a great commodity to them.344 If the marriage was to take place, the Queen might be persuaded to sacrifice these men, in order to show that in marrying she had no intention to bring about a change of religion, or a toleration of Popery. On the other hand, if the cruelty could be carried far enough to shock the tolerant policy of the French court, or the feelings of the French people, there was a secret hope that it might delay, if not altogether prevent the marriage.345 Again, the Queen had somewhat offended the Londoners by the vindictive and cruel punishment of Stubbs, and it might be represented to her

WITHOUT PROTECTORS.

273

that it was wise to redress the balance with the blood of a few Papists; but of course no one would tell her that as she had already offended the Puritans, so she might by her farther cruelty offend the more judicious part of her subjects, as well as her French allies. Then, again, Campion and his companions, by a combination of circumstances, were deprived of all protection; the Spanish ambassador could not aid them, without exciting more suspicion of their complicity with the Hispano-Papal designs; the French ambassador could not, for fear of proving that the French match tended towards toleration of Popery-and would not, because he suspected the Jesuits of a design to traverse the French alliance in favour of Spain. Sir Philip Sidney, who had promised his help to Campion, if he was ever in danger, was himself in disgrace for his letter to the Queen against the match; and though admitted to see her in October, was yet so "wholly out of comfort" that he could not venture to intercede for any other person; and the continual fears of a Spanish invasion stopped the mouths of those moderate men who in other circumstances would have counselled moderation.346

Hence it was that Walsingham and the others who wished to put Campion to death had not a very difficult part to play. They had merely to persuade the Queen and people that he and his fellows had really conspired against her, had been guilty of particular treasons, besides the general one of their reconciling her Majesty's subjects to the Pope, and then they might be hanged with general approbation. Walsingham doubtless thought it unlucky that just at this time, indeed the very day that Campion was paraded through London (July 22), he was sent to France on a special mission connected with the match. The first letter that he wrote from Paris to Burghley testified his anxiety 347 "I pray God her Majesty may take profit of Campion's discovery, verely punishing the offenders, for nothing hath done more harm than the overmuch lenity that hath been used in that behalf." Perhaps these men had already satisfied their consciences that Campion and the rest might justly be hanged on the late statute, and that policy required them to be put to death. Hence that it would be no murder if they used false pretences to cajole the reluctant Queen into allowing them to be hanged.

se

Three such pretences suggested themselves. One was due to Dr. Hammond. Let the prisoners be asked what they thought of divers treasonable passages collected out of the works of Sanders, Allen, and Bristow, three Catholic theologians, whom it would be equally difficult for them to defend

T

or to condemn. And let them be asked what they thought of the validity of Pius's Bull, and of the Queen's title to the crown, and (afterwards) what they would do in the event of the Pope invading England. The passages that Hammond collected were published in 1582, with the replies of Campion and the rest, in a tract entitled "A particular Declaration or Testimony of the undutiful and traitorous affection borne against her Majesty by Edmund Campion, Jesuit, and other condemned priests, witnessed by their own confessions," which has been often reprinted.348 These passages refer in terms of praise to the mission of Dr. Morton and to the rebels of 1569, to the Bull of Pius V., to the excommunication of the Queen, and to the martyrs Felton and Story. We first hear of them in the letter of Council, of July 30, which consigned Campion to his first racking. "Whereas we are given to understand that you Mr. Dr. Hammond have, out of Sanders' and Bristow's books, drawn certain points touching the acknowledgment of their allegiance towards her Majesty; we think it good that you propound the same to Campion and the priests, requiring their direct answer to the same.

The reply, testified by Hopton, Beale, Hammond, and Norton, and dated August 1, is published in the tract just named. "Edmund Campion, being demanded whether he would acknowledge the publishing of these things before recited by Sanders, Bristow, and Allen, to be wicked in the whole or in any part; and whether he doth at this present acknowledge her Majesty to be a true and lawful Queen, or a pretensed Queen, and deprived, and in possession of her crown only de facto. He answereth to the first, "That he meddleth neither to nor fro, and will not further answer, but requireth that they may answer.' To the second he saith, "That this question dependeth upon the fact of Pius Quintus, whereof he is not to judge, and therefore refuseth further to answer." These answers show how resolutely he refused to enter the field of politics. He could not satisfy his conscience either of the Pope's right to depose the Queen, or of his own right to judge the Pope. He determined therefore, as far as he might, to confine himself to the merely religious aspect of the controversy, to meddle neither to nor fro with questions of state or ecclesiastical policy, and to refuse to make himself umpire between two high contending parties so far above him as Pope and Queen.349 So even

Upon the rack,

Where men enforced do speak any thing,"

he would commit himself to neither side. His was not a dog